THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080414
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 181 lines
For eight years, Robert and Naomi Bethea squirreled away savings from their jobs as shipyard worker and teacher to pay for their sons' college educations.
For eight years, the Chesapeake couple invested their money in radio stations run by Norfolk Bishop L.E. Willis Sr. and his son, Levi E. Willis II. The Willises promised high interest and a secure investment.
But the money was not repaid. Last year, the Betheas sued Willis Broadcasting Corp. and Willis Sr. and won a judgment of $169,759.
And still the Betheas cannot collect the debt. They have met with the bishop, his son and various lawyers, but Willis Sr. claims he has no assets to pay back the loan.
``We thought he was someone honorable,'' Robert Bethea, 59, said in a recent interview. ``The bishop has been a rascal. I think I've lost a few hairs because of him.''
Today, the younger Willis, 41, is running for the state House of Delegates. It is a grass-roots campaign, he says, to make government more accessible to ordinary people.
``I don't want to be a delegate living in an ivory tower while my constituency lives in the basement,'' Willis said in an interview last month.
But court records and interviews show that the Willis radio empire, with Levi Willis II as vice president, has left behind a string of frustrated creditors and unpaid court judgments, including some involving ordinary local investors like the Betheas.
These court judgments include tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid state and federal taxes, unpaid loans and utility bills, and unpaid music royalties and licensing fees.
The Willis family owns 27 radio stations nationwide, including WPCE in Portsmouth. Sixteen of those stations are owned by Willis Broadcasting Corp., a company based on Church Street in Norfolk, or a wholly owned subsidiary, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
The elder Willis, who is managing his son's election campaign, is the sole owner and director of Willis Broadcasting. His son is vice president.
The younger Willis declined to answer questions about the company for this story. But in an interview last month, Willis said he had been intimately involved with the company's operations for 20 years. He said he took a sabbatical from the company in October to devote all his time to Good News Family Worship Center, where he is pastor.
Willis faces incumbent Del. Jerrauld C. Jones in a Democratic primary June 13. There is no Republican candidate, so unless an independent candidate files by Tuesday, whoever wins the primary will represent the district in Richmond.
Jones declined to comment on any aspect of Willis' radio business.
Court records and interviews show that Willis Broadcasting has suffered a string of court judgments and lawsuits in recent years, many of them since 1993. These include:
Music royalties: For many years, the Willis stations have failed to pay royalties and licensing fees for the music they played.
ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, the association that represents about half of all song writers and publishers in America, has won several judgments against Willis Broadcasting and Willis Sr. in Norfolk's federal court.
``He's one of our worst recidivists,'' said Ross Charap, ASCAP's legal affairs director. ``We don't usually sue people more than once or twice.''
On May 26, ASCAP got a new court order against the company for failing to pay a 1993 court judgment of $219,000. The court had ordered that payment because the radio stations were playing music without paying royalties.
The new order tacks on an additional $10,000 because Willis Broadcasting defaulted on the debt.
Earlier in 1993, ASCAP got another judgment against Willis Broadcasting for $111,000, also for playing music on radio stations without paying royalties or fees.
The company should be paying about $6,900 a month in royalties and license fees, ASCAP says.
``We bent over backwards,'' Charap said. Willis Sr. ``just never came through, promise after promise after promise. . . . It's quite amazing to me he's gotten away with it as long as he has.''
Last month, Broadcast Music Inc., the other national music licensing association, won its own court judgment of $2,611 against Willis Broadcasting.
Personal loans: At least three individuals who loaned the company money have sued and won judgments against Willis Broadcasting since 1993.
Last month, a teacher in rural North Carolina won a $97,000 judgment against the company. Her lawsuit accused the company and Willis Sr. of fraud. The lawsuit was uncontested; no reply was ever filed.
The teacher, Ernestine J. Gardner of Grifton, N.C., said she loaned the company $84,000 over five years, from 1988 to 1993, after hearing Willis Sr. appeal for money over the radio. Most of the money was never repaid.
Each year, Gardner said, she gave the company and Willis Sr. thousands of dollars, up to $31,000 in one year. In return, she took promissory notes from Crusade Broadcasting Corp., a Willis-owned company in New Jersey. But last year, Willis sold Crusade to another broadcasting company, leaving Gardner unpaid for most of her money.
Willis paid back less than one-third of Gardner's loans. She won a default judgment on May 26 for her full $97,000 claim.
In another case, Robert and Naomi Bethea of Chesapeake sued the company after investing for several years.
The Betheas are practicing Christians but are not members of either of the Willises' congregations and did not respond to a radio appeal. Rather, they say, they viewed the loans as sound business investments.
The elder Willis ``said I would have no problem getting my money back,'' Robert Bethea recalled. So the couple invested $125,000 from 1984 to 1992. They sued Willis Broadcasting when they couldn't get their money back.
Sometimes, Bethea said, he met with the younger Willis, but never got any satisfaction.
``He turned out to be just as big a liar,'' Bethea said. ``He said he could not speak for his father, but he would get back to me. But he never got back. I always had to get back to him.''
In the end, only a small portion of the loans was repaid. The couple's attorney, Joseph A. Pennington, said Willis Sr. now claims he does not have enough money or other assets to repay the loans.
The Betheas had planned to use the money to send their sons to out-of-town colleges. Instead, the boys attended school closer to home.
``Getting a judgment is one thing,'' Pennington said. Getting paid is another.
In a third case, a Norfolk man who has known Willis Sr. for years loaned the company $300,000 in 1991. Only $15,000 was repaid.
The lender, Warren D. Morton, sued the company and Willis personally in 1992 in Norfolk court. In legal papers, Morton claimed that Willis used the money to buy and operate radio stations.
In January 1993, a judge ordered Willis Broadcasting to pay back all the money, plus $50,000 in lawyer fees.
``Since that time, (Morton) has been trying to collect on the judgment,'' said Morton's attorney, Albert H. Poole. ``At this point, it has not been fully satisfied.''
Taxes: Willis Broadcasting is habitually late paying taxes. The company owes thousands of dollars to the state and federal governments.
On May 24, the Indiana Department of Revenue filed a $10,000 lien against the company in a Norfolk court. A subsidiary of Willis Broadcasting owns a station in Gary, Ind., and another Willis company owns a station in Franklin, Ind.
In April, Virginia filed a $37,952 lien against the company for late taxes from 1991 to 1994. The state also has filed several other tax liens against the company in recent years, some of which were eventually repaid.
But the biggest tax lien against Willis Broadcasting was filed in November 1993 by the federal government for $129,247. There is no record in Norfolk Circuit Court, where the lien was recorded, that the taxes were ever paid.
Equipment: In January, a judge ruled that Willis Broadcasting must give back a transmitter that was delivered in 1993 to a Willis radio station in Hickory, N.C., or pay a delinquent bill of $20,000. After the trial, the company paid the bill.
In 1992, a Suffolk company replaced an antenna at a Willis radio station in Cape Charles, but was not paid. This past December, the company won a $15,999 court judgment against Willis Broadcasting for the unpaid bills.
And in January 1994, an Iowa company that sold radio equipment to Willis Broadcasting won a $112,967 judgment against the company for unpaid bills.
Phone bills: In April, Willis Broadcasting was sued for $15,933 in unpaid phone bills by MCI Telecommunications Corp. That lawsuit is pending.
Last year, AT&T won a $10,081 judgment against Willis Broadcasting for other unpaid phone bills. Also last year, Carolina Telephone and Telegraph won a $346 judgment against the company for unpaid bills.
Lawyer fees: A Norfolk law firm that represented Willis Broadcasting for six months in 1992, defending the company against the ASCAP lawsuit, was not paid for $3,808 in legal bills. The firm, Weisberg & Zaleski, won a court judgment for the money in February last year. MEMO: ABOUT THIS STORY
In April, Levi E. Willis II announced his candidacy for the state
House of Delegates. Coincidentally, court reporters had been collecting
information about Willis Broadcasting Corp., of which Willis is vice
president, for a possible future profile of the family's radio empire.
After Willis' announcement, reporters gathered more information. Two
weeks ago, a reporter tried to contact Willis; it took several days of
phone calls to reach him.
On June 1, Willis declined to discuss Willis Broadcasting. At first
he referred questions to his father. Finally, he agreed to accept
written questions. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Willis didn't
return phone calls, and he hasn't answered the written questions.
It is the newspaper's policy to run potentially controversial stories
about political candidates as far in advance of Election Day as possible
and to include extensive comments from the candidates. Neither was
possible in this case because Willis, a candidate in Tuesday's
Democratic primary, was not available.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Levi E. Willis II
Bishop L.E. Willis Sr.
KEYWORDS: BISHOP WILLIS LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT by CNB